Have you ever wondered how you can force affinity to multiple cores while gaming? Well here's the answer. I discovered that for a lot of my games (I have a dual core machine) only Core0 is used when gaming. With CPU intensive games like for instance Need for Speed Shift the Core0 was being used 100% and Core1 was almost doing nothing.
I came across the following program WinAFC. You can download it here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/affinitychanger/
Here's what you do next. Unpack the file to your preferred location. After you finished doing that open the affinityinput.txt file in the root folder.
For example enter to following line to make NFS Shift run on both cores.
Here you can specify the applications you want to assign affinity to.
The priority settings can be set to Unchanged | Idle | BelowNormal | Normal | AboveNormal | High | Realtime. I prefer to configure it to normal. CPU0+CPU1 means that this executable will run with affinity set to both cores. CPU0+CPU1+CPU2+CPU3 means the executable will be run on four cores if you have a quad core. And so it goes on.
Now save this file and run the executable WinAFC.exe.
Now a command prompt is executing and notice that in your system tray there is appearing a new icon.
Right click this icon. A context menu will appear. Choose settings. Next click that tab startup settings.
Now check the checkbox console minimized on start. Leave the default path of the log file default. Save the settings.
Now right click the WinAFC icon again in your systray. Choose load profile...affinityinput.txt
And you are done!! You can add the a WinAFC shortcut to you Startup folder so it starts when booting your PC. Make sure to run it in a minimized window. Then the icon will only appear in your System tray. You are going to be amazed how much performance you gain after applying affinity to multiple cores when gaming. I am amazed how smooth NFS Shift now runs on my machine compared to the normal configuration. When not changing affinity manually or by this program the game runs A LOT slower. This goes for a lot of other games as well.
I came across the following program WinAFC. You can download it here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/affinitychanger/
Here's what you do next. Unpack the file to your preferred location. After you finished doing that open the affinityinput.txt file in the root folder.
For example enter to following line to make NFS Shift run on both cores.
Code:
E:\Games\Need for Speed SHIFT\Shift.exe := CPU0+CPU1 [assign=2,priority=normal]Here you can specify the applications you want to assign affinity to.
The priority settings can be set to Unchanged | Idle | BelowNormal | Normal | AboveNormal | High | Realtime. I prefer to configure it to normal. CPU0+CPU1 means that this executable will run with affinity set to both cores. CPU0+CPU1+CPU2+CPU3 means the executable will be run on four cores if you have a quad core. And so it goes on.
Now save this file and run the executable WinAFC.exe.
Now a command prompt is executing and notice that in your system tray there is appearing a new icon.
Right click this icon. A context menu will appear. Choose settings. Next click that tab startup settings.
Now check the checkbox console minimized on start. Leave the default path of the log file default. Save the settings.
Now right click the WinAFC icon again in your systray. Choose load profile...affinityinput.txt
And you are done!! You can add the a WinAFC shortcut to you Startup folder so it starts when booting your PC. Make sure to run it in a minimized window. Then the icon will only appear in your System tray. You are going to be amazed how much performance you gain after applying affinity to multiple cores when gaming. I am amazed how smooth NFS Shift now runs on my machine compared to the normal configuration. When not changing affinity manually or by this program the game runs A LOT slower. This goes for a lot of other games as well.
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Just any game is running smoother with high detail settings... 
